A 360,000-person company is trying to fix the pay problem so many companies face

Accenture CEO and chairman Pierre Nanterme. Accenture Over the past couple of years Accenture CEO and chairman Pierre Nanterme noticed global discussions on the workplace turn towards the gender pay gap and is speaking out about the importance of paying men and women 100% equally at his own 358,000 company.

The leader of the professional-services firm says the company has a long-standing history of working toward gender equality.

"What I want to do is put much more emphasis on this, because I believe it's extraordinarily important for the company, it's extremely important for society as well, and I want to make sure that indeed at this present time we are renewing our committment to gender equality," Nanterme tells Business Insider.

Nanterme explains that the current political, business, and social zeitgeist is that the gender pay gap is far too wide, and he wanted to confirm Accenture is in the right place.

He says the company has ongoing rigorous processes to identify any potential pay discrepencies, and when he discovered a small number of issues, he was swift to take action and, in some cases, was able to align pay in a matter of hours.

Accenture currently employs about 130,000 women, and the company has also hired 100,000 people in the past fiscal year, which presents a unique opportunity to test out these processes that guarantee equal pay within the company.

With each new hire, Accenture looks at employees' experience, education, location, role and other significant factors to determine market relevant compensation. For existing employees there are various checkpoints, by geography — like when an employee is promoted — that are part of the company's ongoing processes to identify potential pay discrepancies.

Overall, Nanterme's philosophy is simple: "If we find a problem, we fix it."

Accenture's pay parity comes at a time in the US when women earn significantly less than men.

After comparing more than 1.4 million salary profiles of men and women working the same jobs, PayScale calculates that women earn 2.7% less — or $0.97 on the dollar — than men with similar characteristics working the same jobs. Overall, when comparing all men to all women, women earn 25.6% of what men earn, or $0.74 on the dollar.

In fact, an Accenture report called "The Next Generation of Working Women" found that women are less likely to ask for a raise. So it's important for pay parity to come from the top.

"These pay gap discussions around the world have been a trigger for me to make sure that we continue to have the topic at the top of our agenda and the agenda of the board," Nanterme says.

He says he is a strong believer in meritocracy when it's about rewarding the performance of his people.

"Sometimes you need to speak up about what you're standing for," Nanterme says. "It is very important for your people, and you shouldn't take for granted that people know, inside or outside."

Nanterme believes equal work deserves equal pay. Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design/flickr When the world is trying to find what's next in terms of values and what's the right thing to do, Nanterme says it's so important for businesses to communicate their principles externally as well.

"At Accenture, we are visibile, and I feel when you are visible — when people are watching you — you need to speak up," Nanterme says. He hopes to make gender equality universally adopted in this way.

"With the full power of our 360,000 people, we said to the external world, this is what we believe at Accenture is the right thing to do, and gender equality is among the business principles which are fundamental for a company, and we want this to be known outside," he says.

Accenture's equal pay initiative is one of several progressive programs the company has pioneerd over the years. By 2017, Accenture plans to grow the percentage of women it hires to at least 40% worldwide, and in fiscal year 2015, about 39% of the company's more than 100,000 new hires were women.

Accenture offers up to sixteen weeks of paid maternity leave for birth mothers in the US, as well as up to eight weeks of paid time off for other primary caregivers and two weeks of paid time off for secondary caregivers. And the firm joins an elite group of employers by offering breastmilk delivery for nursing mothers on business trips.

"Gender equality is one of the principles we will never compromise at Accenture," Nanterme says.